Caity Simmers, best surfer in the world.

"Caity Simmers is mesmerizing to watch. A round of applause to Miss Caity Simmers!"

“Youth inferno” Caity Simmers lays fresh claim to title of best female surfer in the world with jaw-dropping B-sides edit

4 months ago

"Caity Simmers is the most talented woman surfer ever. Not many surfers, men or women, would pull half the barrels she did on this trip."

Only four months ago, the San Clemente (sharks!) teenager Caity Simmers and Australian Molly Picklum delivered the best performance ever by the gals at Pipe, with Caity beating hall-of-fame performer Picklum in perfect four-to-six-foot waves.

“Pipeline for the fucking girls,” said Caity Simmers, in the immediate aftermath of her win. “I respect everyone who wants a part of it and I respect anyone who doesn’t want a part of it.”

Caity Simmers showed how quickly generational change was happening there previous year in Tahiti when she, and Caroline Marks, dominated the Tahiti Pro as Stephanie Gilmore “showed little interest in being there.”

As Jen See reported,

If you watch nothing else from this finals day, watch this wave from Caity. It shows plainly her unique intuition. It’s as though Caity feels a rhythm on that wave that few others can perceive.

Setting it up, Caity takes off from deep. The wave sections ahead of her, but she smoothly bottom turns around it. Remember now, she’s surfing backside. Caity throws a quick midface turn to line up the barrel. Then she grabs rail and pulls in.

Shooting through the crumbling lip, she makes a clean exit. She almost looks surprised that she made it. But she still remembers to throw in a quick down carve to finish it. The judges gave it a 9.23. I’m not sure what else they wanted there. Just give her the ten, you nerds!

Despite an early exit from this year’s Tahiti Pro due, mostly, to the WSL’s decision to run the gal’s elim heats in a slowing swell, Caity leads the women’s tour by a decent sorta margin. She is two k points or thereabouts, and is decent sorta bet to win the title, aged eighteen, at her home break, Lowers, in September.

A recent series of films by surf forecasting giant Surfline, and which feature Caity Simmers, demonstrate she ain’t just a contest machine.

And, this B-side edit, which you’ll wanna watch, below, has dragged male viewers’ jaws to the ground.

Caity is the most talented woman surfer ever. Not many surfers, men or women, would pull half the barrels she did on this trip. The fact that she gets more excited doing this than winning comps says a lot about her mindset. And her style is so naturally elegant and functional, sort of like Slater when he came up on the scene, nothing too flashy or hyper stylish(à la Ethan Ewing or Steph Gilmore) but just smooth and no hickups whatsoever. Mesmerizing to watch. A round of applause to miss Simmers!

You absolutely know that you had a great surf trip when the cutting room floor is covered in 9.5 to 10-point tube rides….

My appreciation for what Caity does here….. no words, just go do it some more! Fantastic stuff !

Can’t believe these are b sides. caity is a once in a generation talent.

Right now she is one of the best in the World, imagine this girl in 5 years. She improves each session, with each event… Crazy that Caity still has the potential to grow even more!

The Future is here.

Essential.

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Max, kid Rush, wife Alessa and greatest surfer of all time Kelly Slater.

UFC BMF champ Max Holloway gives son Rush “greatest day of his life” at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch

By Derek Rielly

5 months ago

"The daddest man on the planet!"

If you’re into cage fighting, and who ain’t now that pro surfing continues its path to self-annihilation although Tahiti may give a brief respite, you’ll have thrilled to the greatest knockout of all-time by the Hawaiian Max Holloway at UFC300 five weeks back.

Holloway has gone up a weight class and is expected to lose but instead dominates the thunder of BMF (Bad Motherfucker) belt holder Justin Gaethje.

Ten seconds on the clock. Fifth and last round. Holloway has already won the fight on points but risks everything to give his fans ten seconds of in-the-pocket stand and bang.

One second left and Gaethje is felled by a Holloway cleaver, falling with dope glazed eyes onto the canvas.

Joey Rogan describes it as the “greatest knocked out in UFC history”, which is fair, I think.

Real legend behaviour from Holloway.

Holloway, who is thirty-one, is the husband of Hawaiian surf star Alessa Quizon (once the gal of Caio Ibelli) and grew up on Oahu’s west side, famous for Sunny Garcia, Johnny Boy Gomes, Makaha and so on.

He surfs, too, enjoying sessions at the Perfect Swell tank in Japan and at the same tech in Waco, Texas, although he describes surfing as “crazier than fighting.”

Recently, Max, along with Alessa and his son Rush, were gifted a couple of days at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, which included cameos from Benji Weatherley, Kalani Robb and Kelly Slater himself.

“I’m going to cry so bad because I’m so happy… my dream has come true!” says Rush, Holloway’s twelve-year-old son with his first wife Kaimana Pa’aluhi, whom he married in 2012 and divorced five years later.

Holloway looks pretty solid on the dreamy Surf Ranch walls, Alessa shreds, naturally, and lil Rush gets the tubes of his dreams.

UFC BMF champ Max Holloway treats son Rush to day at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch

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In this twenty-something minute long-form featurette by the great Rory Pringle, Mason Ho and Sheldon Paishon frolic like pygmy whales in Scotland’s cold dark waters, so cold it’s difficult to scramble to your feet and where after your sessions you shake like a Parkinson’s victim.

Mixed-race Hawaiian surf star Mason Ho and Sheldon Paishon find perfect waves in “too white” Scotland

By Derek Rielly

5 months ago

Hawaiian surfers visit cold-water destination inhabited by the most chilling demographic on earth! Da Whites!

As BeachGrit readers will already know, Scotland, that home of Braveheart, haggis, Hogmanay, bagpipes, JP Currie etc, was in the news recently over its demographics, ie, the shocking stat that ninety-five percent of the country was white.

A four-year-old speech made in the wake of the absurdity of the George Floyd imbroglio by then Scottish health minister Humza Yousaf where he argued that there were too many whites in positions of power and that Scott was “not immune to problems of structural racism” did the rounds recently, bringing joy to combatants in the press and on social media.

“In 20 years, there has not been a single black member of the Scottish Parliament, to our shame; there has not been a single woman MSP of colour, to our shame,” said Yousaf, “and the only four ethnic minority MSPs have all been Scots Asian males.”

Hawaii’s whip-slicked queen of taboo and BIPOC role model Mason Ho (seventy-five percent of his ancestry is Chinese-Hawaiian, a quarter white Americano) and his sparring partner Sheldon Paishon, who was homeless on Oahu’s westside for most of his life and whose documentary you simply must watch, experienced no problems with the local whites, however.

In this twenty-something minute long-form featurette by the great Rory Pringle, the pair frolic like pygmy whales in Scotland’s cold dark waters, so cold it’s difficult to scramble to your feet and where after your sessions you shake like a victim of Parkinson’s.

The waves are very good at times and the pair surf with courage, intelligence and absolute honesty.

Essential.

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Dylan Graves thrills the soul and nourishes the heart by surfing during a total solar eclipse at the Waco wave tank.

Surfers, including world-record breaking Dylan Graves, gather at Waco, Texas, to witness end of world!

By Derek Rielly

5 months ago

"This is one of the most cosmic experiences I've ever had!"

Almost one month ago, Texans were gifted a front-row seat to that most profound of celestial experiences, a total solar eclipse where the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, temporarily blocking the Sun’s light.

BeachGrit readers, all of whom would electrify the interior of any room with sex appeal, will correctly point out a total solar eclipse can only occur during a new moon phase when the Moon is positioned directly between Earth and the Sun.

Throughout history, much consternation from terrified humans who believed the gods or, in the case of the Choctaw Native Americans, a squirrel, had eaten the sun. Ergo, end of the world etc.

Anyway, on April 8, Dylan Graves, whose pursuit of the strangest waves on earth have been well-documented in his ongoing series Weird Waves and whom we almost lost to a cliff fall in Brittany, France, visited the Waco tank so he could surf during the eclipse.

“Everyone you hear of who’s seen a total solar eclipse says things like ‘Words can’t describe it man you just gotta experience it’’. I’m that person now,” writes Graves, the surfer who smashed the Guinness World Record for most turns on a wave with a leg-trembling forty manoeuvres, which he achieved on a tidal bore in Indonesia.

“This video is my attempt at trying to assign some words. As well as add some visuals to help understand this WILD experience. In our case, obviously there had to be surfing involved, and it just so happens that there was a wave pool right smack in the middle of the line of totality in Waco Texas. I was with a group of scientists. Some eclipse chasers. And just happy go lucky surfers at the right place at the right time. This is definitely one of the most cosmic surf experiences I’ve ever had…”

“But,” says Dylan, “it almost didn’t happen…”

Essential.

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Here, Reynolds thrills surf fans with a performance that proves he is still as limber as a Haitian dancer

Kourtney Kardashian’s Carpinteria neighbour Dane Reynolds escapes paparazzi with cameo at Sumatran secret spot

By Derek Rielly

5 months ago

What separates a Dane Reynolds edit from the rest is joyous purity, energy and barrel riding that hits you in the stomach.

Only two years ago, the rural idyll of go-for-broke former world number four Dane Reynolds was shattered by the arrival of Kourtney Kardashian and her husband Travis Barker, the pint-sized jack-in-the-box drummer for Blink 182.

Although he is yet to speak publicly about the sale of Conan O’Brien’s old joint on Padaro Lane there in Serena Cove, Carpinteria, to Travis and Kourtney it’s no secret that this is a man who likes his privacy.

In this latest YouTube instalment for Chapter 11 TV, Dane Reynolds has escaped the noise of Central California for the wilds of Sumatra, the second largest of the Greater Sunda Islands, in the Malay Archipelago. Here, Reynolds thrills surf fans with a performance that proves he is still as limber as a Haitian dancer. An Australian surfer with meringue-white skin and strawberry red hair summarises the mood of the pack with a Fisher-esque to-camera monologue.

“Oh mate, fuck, good to have a a crack, couple of legends out there doing their thing, inspiring shit, thank you Sumatra, la la la la la la.”

What separates a Dane Reynolds edit from the rest is an excellent question. The ingredients are joyous purity, energy and barrel riding that hits you in the stomach.

Two weeks ago, Reynolds showcased his dramatic weight loss in a new edit, filmed six months after he was nearly killed after a blow to his head.

And last month, Dane Reynolds lionised the slacker lifestyle in a controversial anti-MAGA edit that pushed back against conventional lifestyles, the sort championed by the fundamentalist Protestant right and red-hatters.

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